[curtis]

I have wondered if epigenetic effects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics#Transgenerational_...) from the 1944 Dutch famine (https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Dutch_famine_of_1944) could have resulted in a substantial positive impact on Dutch height for several generations following the famine.

It seems likely that eastern Europeans suffered much more extreme privations than the Dutch did in this time period, but maybe they also saw a similar effect, it's just less noticeable because those populations were a couple of inches shorter on average anyway. The notable thing about the Dutch is not that recent generations are taller than their forebears -- that's probably true for most all European populations. The really notable thing is that they're also taller than other northwestern populations like the Danes.

The natural selection argument is probably a better and certainly a simpler explanation, though.

[Someone]

What makes this such a popular area of research is not that they are taller, but that they overtook everybody else in no time:

"In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, people of European descent in North America were far taller than those in Europe and were the tallest in the world. [...] In the late nineteenth century, the Netherlands was a land renowned for its short population" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height#History_of_huma...)

150-ish years, 6-7 generations.

[curtis]

So one question is, if you normalize nutrition, what's the intrinsic height difference between populations? You are correct that the speed at which the Dutch have overtaken other nearby populations is kind of surprising. A nutrition differential could make that much difference, but it seems like general nutrition shouldn't differ much at all between the Dutch, the Belgians, the French, etc. Another possibility is just the the Dutch are genetically a little bit taller on average if you normalize nutrition. But it doesn't seem like Dutch genetics should differ that much from the surrounding populations either. Could natural selection have made that much difference in Dutch genetics in just a few generations, and recent (post Industrial Revolution) generations at that?

[narag]

I don't think it's a matter of natural selection:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

[gumby]

Actually this is a good guess: kids who had the bad luck of being in the wrong trimester during the height (depth?) of the famine had a might higher prevalence of schizophrenia.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9708024